Fears of ‘dead pool’ on Colorado River as drought threatens Hoover Dam water
latimes.com
latimes.com
You can give each state an amount and let them figure it out, or take all existing rights and re allocate them federally.
But it needs to happen, and urgently.
"But people will lose their income!" - Thats a symptom of requiring these people to work so wastefully to survive. UBI and other safety nets reduce the need to do this specific work for profit.
"But my luxuries will be more expensive!" - No, your luxuries are just being priced at what they cost, and the burden of the environmental damage is no longer hidden from you
"Big government bad!" - I get it, I'm an anarchist. But when you have to protect a massive river, it's clear we cannot rely on all the individuals to do the right thing.
It could just easily be the start of a spiral into an Argentina style socialist nightmare. The ability to vote for the party offering you a raise may be too dangerous.
There’s no real way to know, because it’s never been tried at enough scale, or real enough, to have any data one way or the other.
Instead of UBI as a bag of dollars, which landlords and merchants will immediately seek to plunder, you deliver highly-subsidized food, shelter, and rich public services. This is much harder to capture, and also has less of a ratchet factor.
Consider, for example, a universal health care component. The interest in more services and coverage wanes once it reaches a level of "good enough for most people." There may be some niche voters pulled in by "we'll also cover leeches", but most people will find those arguments uncompelling.
In the worst case, benefits do escalate, and you end up with more and more economic activity under government control, either as a direct UBI delivery system, or through ever growing tax rates to finance the subsidized programs. Which in and of itself may not be so bad. I know the entrpeneurship/free markets/self-directed mindset is very big in this community, but if the goal is maximizing quality-of-life metrics, this might be a viable way to deliver it. Ideally, we're all healthy, securely housed, and well fed, and our cultural-economic question becomes "how much of a discretionary hobby budget is $job_title worth?"
People like to pretend it doesn't, but it does.
UBI making shell games like that harder is a good thing if you ask me.
People need to get over the ... but but X got more than me.... if you're worried about that then move to SF and you'll get as much as they get, because it all goes to landlords anyways.
Also much bigger restrictions on housing is needed with an airbnb or hospitality tax for any short-term rentals. Something that makes it almost worth just converting to a long-term instead.
The fact that subsidies provided to improve affordability of rents generally increases those rent costs is long-recognised. Winston Churchill in 1906:
Some years ago in London there was a toll bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings offended the public conscience, and agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the taxpayers, the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved sixpence a week, but within a very short time rents on the south side of the river were found to have risen about sixpence a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted!
<https://www.landvaluetax.org/history/winston-churchill-said-...>
Providing a subsidy sounds appealing to economically-naive voters and is appealing to economically-sophisticated rentiers. Such policies are highly politically tractable (they have broad support) but economically nonsensical (they aggravate rather than solve the underlying problem).
Economically, the two dynamics in constant tension are the Iron Law of Wages (wages fall to, or below, subsistence level), and the Law of Rent (rents rise to consume all surplus value).
The solution is to address both:
- A UBI provides an income floor which serves as a credible BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement) for any individual, whether or not part of the work force. An employer must offer terms at least as attractive as leisure (or alternative, potentially noneconomic activity) to attract new hires.
- A tax on rents, with the classic case being a land tax, returns surplus value to the public sphere and motivates holders of rent-generating assets to apply those to their greatest economic value, rather than letting them sit idle. (I'd extend the rents past the traditional land, but it's a useful illustrative case.)
Both prongs can be extended. Government might step in as, say, both employer and housing supplier of last resort, as well as providing credits to businesses which are truly socially-beneficial but economically nonviable (the classic definition of a public good: education, healthcare, emergency services, child and elder care, etc.) permitting these to function under a regime of both UBI and rents taxes.
Besides, I see two serious problems:
1) There's always the political incentive to raise it. More people benefit than are harmed, thus it will bring votes even as it crushes the economy.
2) It's a trap. You'll end up with the lower segment of the population not having useful job skills. If for whatever reason you have to scale back/eliminate UBI you have a bunch of people who are effectively non-workers.
I used to support it but I've come to realize it's not a solution.
There's also the approach of a negative income tax, but to be at a useful level this would push a form of graft--fake jobs with kickbacks. (I'll hire you to sit in the office for $5/hr. You pay me $8/hr under the table from the tax rebate you're getting.)
I also dislike approaches like universal health care--from looking at the nations that have implemented it it has a major fox-guarding-the-henhouse problem: the same people decide what the standards are and spend the money to meet the standards. Oops, the route to getting votes is to lower the standards as that gets you more votes from low taxes than loses from people lacking treatment, especially if their doctors never tell them of the problem. (You're not likely to miss option X if your doctor doesn't tell you about it in the first place.)
Something I would like to see is to modify the ACA towards lower copays and a much lower *monthly* out of pocket max (perhaps tied to last year's AGI), then give everyone a subsidy equal to the cheapest plan they qualify for with a forced-placement system to that plan if you don't pick one. And I would like to put a time limit on the wait for service--for a routine matter they have say 30 days to provide service (first available appointment with the proper type of doctor) or they have to cover out of network as if it was in network--and once that's been triggered you can keep that doc regardless. The clock starts on the day the referral is made, or the service requested if referrals are not required.
Otherwise, what do you have?
Touching that would be opening a giant Pandora’s box few legislators want to handle.
And with how broken Congress is in general, do ANY of the states involved think that would produce a better outcome?
But nah.
Sounds about right! If the little guy gets screwed too, SNAFU.
If anyone tried to use it to do that, everyone would regret it.
You may need to read up the definition of that word
Hell look at Russia’s “shock therapy” transition to capitalism, we are seeing the very direct consequences of that to this day.
Respect to my anarchist comrades who are all or nothing, but I recognize the current system we live in, and I'm not going to throw away the useful tools before replacing them.
Big https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/330/819/e47... energy.
Obviously that anarchism means, being opposed to all government activity, regulation and rules, so he cannot call him an anarchist if he wants rules for a river. But the thing with anarchism is, that there is not really a authorative definition accepted and in use ..
Sure there is:
anarchism (n.) "political doctrine advocating leaderlessness," 1640s; see anarchy + -ism.
anarchy (n.) 1530s, "absence of government," from French anarchie or directly from Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek anarkhia "lack of a leader, the state of people without a government" (in Athens, used of the Year of Thirty Tyrants, 404 B.C., when there was no archon), abstract noun from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + arkhos "leader" (see archon).
Well, I kind of tried that method for some time, but for some reasons I was not able to avoid confusion. Maybe because people care more about what a word means to them today and not what it meant 2000 years ago?
(In my opinion, there is allmost no anarchist opposed to all authority - they might say so, but only because they negate the existence of informal hierachies and do not consider collectivism (theft) as a shape of authority for instance. Lots of hypocrisy going on there, but there are self aware and righteous folks among them)
The idea of the peaceful anarchism like gandhi represented is, to convince people to just stop following unjust orders. No need for genocide this way and he showed, that this can work sometimes.
The problem I see rather with the natural developing of informal hierachies in group dynamics. In other words, there will be leaders, even if they say everyone is equal.
Try instead, "a society free from unjust hierarchies". Most anarchists are comfortable with the idea of democracy, elections, and delegation of decision making. As long as it's consensual and democratic. Think of like, "hey, we need a treasurer to manage the finances".
Anarchism is not a unified idea. Anarcho syndicalism is different from Anarcho communism is different from Anarcho socialism.
What would be a just hierarchie?
"Most anarchists are comfortable with the idea of democracy, elections, and delegation of decision making. As long as it's consensual and democratic"
Most anarchists I met, not so much. Till the extreme point of "anarchists don't vote". Not even in a small group. There is a consensus or there is no decision.
I like the idea of doing things in a consensus. But only one person in a bad mood can then block everything. But when you remove that person, it is not really a democratic consensus anymore, but majority rule .. which is fine by me, but is probably not "pure anarchism" anymore.
I think incrementalism is a dead end too - at some point we need to make some hard cuts away from current systems, but it's self defeating to not acknowledge the material reality in front of us.
"we are working with a federation composed of 40 other anarchist groups. We elect a delegate and delegate small decisions to them, and they can be removed easily by the group."
"We have a safety officer on the factory floor who has the power to stop the work of others if there's a concern. They can be replaced easily"
"A teacher removing students who are disruptive to learning, but finding them alternative learning models."
An unjust hierarchy is when one person has power over another for no reason and whose power is self reinforcing or permanent. (A wealthy capitalist has more power, and gains power faster than a factory worker.)
I can imagine a society built on mutual aid, and I practice that everywhere I can. But I have access to tools today. I can vote, I can use my voice to influence the government. What's my alternative, given the reality of today? Convert everyone asking the Colorado river to council communists before the river dries up?
My tool box isn't perfect, but it has some good tools in it. Many of them I'd ideally get rid of and replace, but I'm not going to ignore the tools I have until I replace them with better ones.
Building mutual aid networks locally, first and foremost. We help us, we protect us. Think food, clothing, and shelter for anyone in need.
Advocate for harm reduction. Given there are a lot of systemic problems that will take years to unwind, it's important to offset those harms, even if it's not your ultimate goal. I vote. It takes me ten minutes, it reduces the harm by electing progressive politicians who might be able to lower the power of capital. That doesn't make me not an anarchist. I can hold an ideal and also recognize reality simultaneously.
Finally, anarchists educate. They are focused on teaching that anarchism isn't "the purge", it's a system built on the idea that every human deserves respect. We have the means to care for everyone and still enjoy some luxuries.
“Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessarily limited to, governments, nation states, and capitalism”
You sound like you’re describing being a good neighbor. Which is good.
But I don’t see how it has any bearing on being an anarchist.
And encouraging the feds to step in to fix interstate water rights sounds very pragmatic, but the opposite of that political philosophy. Unless you’d expect it to weaken their power.
But we do have them. So using them as a tool, until we can replace them with something better, is fine.
And indeed, most anarchists are just "be a good neighbor, at scale".
Im a communist who loves free markets!
Don't confuse ideals with immediate needs. My ideals, and what I'm willing to do today in the name of harm reduction aren't always aligned.
It's called "making compromises" and "using your judgement". A blindly dogmatic adherence to ones own idealism is a recipe for all talk but no material improvements.
So then what's with the insistence (and multiple reminders) of self-labelling as "anarchist"? Why not pragmatist, or harm-reducer, or just not labelling or categorizing yourself at all?
State power can be useful, even if we both wish to be rid of it.
"No single rain drop believes it is responsible for the flood."
> Human consumption of freshwater is now approaching or surpassing the rate at which water sources are being naturally replenished in many regions, creating water shortage risks for people and ecosystems. Here we assess the impact of human water uses and their connection to water scarcity and ecological damage across the United States, identify primary causes of river dewatering and explore ways to ameliorate them. We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region. We assess opportunities for alleviating water scarcity by reducing cattle-feed production, finding that temporary, rotational fallowing of irrigated feed crops can markedly reduce water shortage risks and improve ecological sustainability. Long-term water security and river ecosystem health will ultimately require Americans to consume less beef that depends on irrigated feed crops.
* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0483-z https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0483-z
* PDF: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/323061602.pdf
> Irrigation of cattle feed crops is the single largest consumptive user at both regional and national scales, accounting for 23 percent of all water consumption nationally, 32 percent in the Western U.S. and 55 percent in the Colorado River basin.
* https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2020/march/beef-dairy-consumptio...
Add the industrial and cattle together and one can quickly see that it's not humans that are consuming the vast majority of potable water, but companies and industry that are depleting what's available for the rest of us.
companies only make what they can sell. The sell what consumers want. So it is humans. Humans want meat. If they stop wanting meat companies will stop making meat.
There should be three grades of water:
1) Untreated.
2) Salty (desalinated, but not to full freshwater standards), used for toilets, showers and the like.
3) Potable.
What you're doing with the water should have no bearing on the price and the price difference should only reflect the additional cost of going from #1 or #2 to #3.
You also pay a separate charge for delivering water to your place, this is omitted if you're getting it from a well and don't need delivery.
The base rates are standardized across a watershed (in this case, every place served by the Colorado river), the delivery charge is based on the cost to provide it to you. (Thus the cabins on the other side of the mountain here that lost their water in a wildfire--when the trees burned it not only damaged the pipe but caused land slippage that destroyed said pipe--pay a whopping delivery charge, but otherwise the same price per cubic foot we do.)
Most of Central California for instance isn’t in a watershed that connects to the Colorado in any way.
If companies start paying the total costs (water, carbon)—including externalities—of their raw materials, and pass those costs onto consumers, perhaps things will rebalance.
I'm sure this kind of feedback loop happens in a lot of industries. Companies don't just make what people want, they also make people want things. Throw in regulation too, which limits the shape of what can be produced. I think what it boils down to is that when you say people want X, that want is not unshaped by those providing it plus other external factors, so there can be a path to people not wanting it that doesn't just involve their individual decisions.
The only real solution is that we consumers consume less, and probably spend more for the same products, period.
I couldn’t disagree more. We need more regulation and taxation, and the real cost of the externalities added to the end product. The public is subsidizing and paying for private industry to pollute and use resources without accountability. That needs to end. The idea that the problem is solely due to personal consumption by individuals is a greenwashing tactic used by corporations to avoid responsibility for their products. The real solution is to put up barriers to producing these products and make the companies pay for their impact on the planet. This strange, antisocial idea that companies aren’t part of the social contract and don’t have to follow the rules of governments and civilization needs to be called out.
I don’t like the idea of blaming companies anymore than blaming individual consumers. They’re working in the same market
If companies start paying the total costs—including externalities (water, carbon)—of their raw materials, and pass those costs onto consumers, perhaps things will rebalance.
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2022/06/30/intel-i...
"The average semiconductor fab uses somewhere between 2 million and 4 million gallons of water per day"
> Arizona has [some non-water requirements for Semi fab location]; however, it faces water challenges. Semiconductor fabs require tremendous quantities of highly pure water, using between two and four million gallons daily.[1] The fact that Arizona has become a semiconductor fab given these high water requirements may seem bewildering.
> ... Although these companies use vast amounts of water, they also recycle aggressively
The chip plants being built in the southwest are fed from the Colorado River, and are using scarce water.
Simple solution - those who believe that is the problem can offer to buy the water rights and then let the water flow.
That's a pretty shocking statistic. Seems like the most logical place to cut despite impact on dairy/cattle production.
The one thing that will cause a civil war is if you take away American's access to beef. Good luck trying to do that
(https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/water-wars/saudi-a....)
Even a 10% reduction in use due to Saudi exports would be higher than the current goal. It is considered a national security risk to export encryption to foreign countries, but it isn't a national security risk to export our water? And why are we growing such water-intensive crops in a desert to begin with?
but trade is what has kept the world wars a bay. Start down the path of protectionism and what we see in Russia/UKR will seem like a nice day at the park
a Middle East-China-Russia vs US-EU-UK-AU-CAN would be the likely outcome, and not good for economic stability or national security
Previous article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the...
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987408
It’s got lose-lose-lose written all over it.
I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard sentiments to the effect of, “well you know there’s no water, so that’s why we’re building on a lot further up the basin and we’ll just have to drill the well deeper than the other folks.”
Sounds about right.
Edit: Their 2022 Resolutions are interesting (PDF): https://www.crwua.org/assets/downloads/resolutions/2022-reso...
But the USA requires a meeting of "officials from seven states, water agencies, tribes and the federal government" to negotiate, and continually fail to come to any agreement.
Each will blame the others, nothing will get done, and everyone will lose, all to avoid not getting the best deal for themselves.
For example we've all read that it takes a little over a gallon to grow an almond. And it takes about 10 gallons to make one integrated circuit.
But that almond does not contain a gallon of water. The almond only contains about 0.0003 gallons of water.
And my computer, which contains dozen of integrated circuits, certainly does not actually contain hundreds of gallons of water.
So could we put almond farms and semiconductor fabs next to each other and arrange that much of the 0.9997 gallons that does not go into the almond is available to the semiconductor fab? (Or maybe the other way around--start with the fab and then do the almonds?)
And could we put some other agricultural or manufacturer after all that, and so on?
Some of these uses might contaminate the water so some cleanup might be needed before it could be used downstream, but there are a lot of agricultural and industrial processes that need water with varying requirements as to how clean it needs to be so it seems plausible that there should be some combinations that would work well together.
Conceivably, you could grow them in a greenhouse and capture much of the exhaust, but it'd probably be cheaper and easier to desalinate, or just dehumidify air directly. Just growing them in a greenhouse at all -- with humidity and gas exchange under control -- would allow water consumption to be cut enormously.
So, someone already took your idea and ruined it on multiple levels.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fruits-irrigated-fracking-...
There are lots of instances of them irrigating with oil waste water, injecting fracking water into aquifers used for irrigation, etc, etc. Then, there are counter claims like "well, we don't know if the [contaminant we release] is from us or is naturally occuring", or "there haven't been any studies showing this thing is harmful at that level", and in one case "we've been doing it for 60 years". There are also many instances of sloppy record keeping, contradictory statements, etc.
It looks like the standard gross polluter coverup playbook to me.
The cleanup part though has used for domestic application sucessfully in several places like Singapore and Las Vegas. What the do is that the cities domestic waste water is cleaned up to the point it is safe to be used a gain (quality become equal or better that the source). This can be now recycled back. I wonder if this can be implemented for industrial waste water.
As far as I can tell, all that CA Gov has done is to prohibit any desalination plants from getting built.
That's interesting, I had no idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact
Places like Hawaii and Florida are, for obvious reasons, not relevant to the Colorado River.
If you have the real estate you can also go with evaporation ponds. Probably not too viable in California but it could be done in Texas.
On a flood year, the Colorado is pretty nuts.
We’d want to capture as much of that water though, most likely.
Note also the paper's historical inaccuracy of attributing commons failure to users of the commons, rather than owners enclosing and appropriating land from common use.